User:JREverest/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/2020-21/Seminar group 5/Power

Power

Power in Volunteer Tourism

Volunteer tourism, also known as ‘voluntourism,’ has been defined as “volunteering in an organised way to help aid or alleviate the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments or research into aspects of society or environment." The Earthwatch Institute has been credited as the creator of volunteer tourism as it is known now - paying to volunteer in another country - but its popularity notably increased in the 90s with the development of the British ‘gap-year.'

Despite Wearing’s definition of volunteer tourism, there’s no agreed definition on what volunteer tourism is, as it fails to differentiate from other established forms of tourism such as gap year tourism, backpacking tourism, or eco-tourism, which leads to ambiguity on what constitutes volunteer tourism. A holiday where one visits an underdeveloped country can be described as volunteer tourism, even if volunteering isn't the primary activity, which highlights significant problems within the industry. While there have been some developments in identifying the benefits and drawbacks of volunteer tourism, it must be noted that research in this area is limited and primarily focuses on the impacts of voluntourism in Africa.

Marketing in Volunteer Tourism

French researchers with African Children. Credits to Lahcenoudoure. Available from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Children.jpg

Images of poverty and starvation in Africa used as marketing strategies for volunteer tourism reinforces stereotypes of the continent as a helpless, poor state and diminishes any efforts that the government or the local communities may have made. There is a need to look into how volunteer tourism has been used, either purposely or by accident, as a means of power for Western countries.

On an individual scale, it can be seen that the primary motivations for participants of voluntourism have been self-empowering. Such examples include: enhancing one’s CV, cultural immersion, and personal growth. Volunteer tourism was originally perceived as a more ethical, selfless, and sustainable form of tourism, but it has since been argued that more altruistic reasons such as ‘giving back’ and ‘helping the poor’ can be seen as selfish since it’s still focused on self-fulfillment.

Another way volunteer tourism marketing illustrates power is on who they focus on when promoting their programs. For example, on the GoAbroad website it says:

“Do you ever sit and ponder the questions, “Why am I here?” or “What is my purpose in life?” Are you unsure what field of study you want to pursue or what career path you want to take? If so, consider volunteering abroad. Volunteer abroad programs can help you figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life. By experiencing life and doing something meaningful with your time in another culture, you might just figure out your calling, while at the same time serving others."

Clearly, the key message that volunteer tourism organisations want to spread is that it is the tourist who will benefit the most. Not only through personal growth, but also economically due to them ‘finding their dream career path while volunteering.’ Crucially, it fails to mention how they are actually benefiting the country they are going to.

The Power Dynamic within Volunteer Tourism

The very nature of volunteer tourism - people in relatively better socioeconomic positions believing they have to help out those who are in what they believe to be a worse position - sets a precedent for an unequal power dynamic between the tourists and the hosts.

Considering how not only are the majority of participants in volunteer tourist activities young, middle and upper-class, British and Australian people, but that the owners of volunteer tourism organisations are also Westerners, it can be argued that the White Saviour Industrial Complex, first coined by Nigerian-American novelist, Teju Cole, is ingrained within the structure of volunteer tourism.

The problem is that those who choose to participate in these programmes are generally not educated on current global inequalities or historical reasons as to why states are impoverished to begin with. Even after returning from these programmes, there is a lack of desire to learn more about the country they have just visited. Garland refers to this mindset as ‘lotto logic’ in which one believes that whether someone is rich or poor depends solely on luck.

This allows an ignorant romanticisation of poverty within the industry as people either ignore or are unaware of the generational benefits they may have received from colonialism. By imagining themselves as ‘heroes’ in countries that need ‘salvation,’ they do not address the fact that volunteer tourism may be reinforcing the inequities they believe they are alleviating.

The Power of Maps - Cartography

Nowadays, maps are used in a lot of press articles, in a large variety of school books, in the academic research field. Maps, as well as a graph or a picture, are used to support an opinion or facts. Therefore, maps are a precise representation of a certain reality and cannot be neutral. In the Power of Maps, Wood D., a cartographer and a former professor of  Design at North Carolina State University, shows how maps can represent a dominant ideology and serve the interest of elites in society.

Proportions of apparent size and real size

First of all, understanding the difficulties to represent a sphere on a flat surface need to be addressed. Representing the Earth on a plane surface will always result in an approximation of the true shape of the Earth. As stated in The Use of Deformational Data in Evaluating World Map Projections, « deformation […] must occur on any projection »(Robinson,1951,p.3). Thus, the cartographer need to choose the right projection to represent the globe and this implies a choice : should he privileged sizes over angles?

Today, the most used world map projection is the Mercator projection, which was developed by the geographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. This map was drawn to help marine navigation and respect the lines of the coasts of every continent. This choice to privilege the lines is detrimental to the countries sizes and land masses are not respected. For example, Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa on this map but, in reality, Africa is 14 times larger than it is represented. This map projection was hugely criticized because countries near the Equator are shown smaller than they are. Northern countries are shown bigger than they are This distorted representation of reality is the result of a European self centered point of view on the world and was largely criticized. In addition, Mercator's placement of his own county Flanders (modern day Belgium) near the centre of the map reinforces the idea of self-centredness reflected in maps, as it suggests that Flanders is the "centre" and hence most powerful in the world.

This map projection influences people’s views of the world and still continue to do. Today, more and more institutions are understanding the controversy to use the Mercator world map projection as a standard and are using other standards such as the Gall-Peters projection on which every country has the correct size relative to each other.

Power in Architecture

Architecture illustrates a material embodiment of a culture at a given time. Concerning the cultural patterns of a given society, architecture which is the artistic process of constructing, planning, and designing a building, aims to show sturdiness and aesthetics. Within a political context, the building civilization tries to express its national strength with cultural durability, care, and thoughts, through a particular architecture. Thus, the physical manifestation of a structure, designed in a certain way, represents an interaction between the space in its content, and therefore the ability of the latter to control a specific territory. Our spatial interactions can become the exhibition space of an ideology, and architectural works are means of expression for different populations, resulting in proactive political decisions.

Materially represented, cultural acts may be illustrated through public works such as monuments in line with the central spirit of an epoch. For instance, during the 20th-century totalitarian regime, Stalin’s skyscraper: “the Seven Sisters of Moscow”, appropriated architecture as a language that used space to create and embody a new world order influenced by communism and Marxism ideology.

The public space is redefined with architecture as a soft-power through external forces of the present, such as today, socialism, and independent culture.

Building’s power may become a cultural negotiation tool when considered as a cultural resource having the ability to attract, and influence bilateral relations. Upstream from this reasoning, a predetermined set of goals, culturally influenced and embedded in a political process, may probably determine architectural designs.

Power in Cybersecurity Corporations

Power comes from the Latin adjective “potis” which means powerful and intuitively refers to the ability of someone to influence others’ behaviours or actions. Power can also be understood as a concept, with a more symbolic dimension. This relates to “power comparability” and the person who controls ideas and meaning. In social, cultural and professional systems, power disparities and imbalances are produced and reinforced by sources of power differentials.

As Hanna Arendt described, power “spring up” between people and “vanishes when they disperse”. In that sense, power dynamics can be observed within a system of people and leads to intersectionality-a clash between the privileged and the oppressed. Although some forms of oppressions are explicit like slavery, there are more subtle ones like discriminating a colleague at the workplace because they are disabled. No direct physical violence is made but some serious psychological injuries are, which eventually may restrain one’s freedom.

Power dynamics in the cybersecurity sector in the United States reflect this “power comparability”. Salary discrepancies are present displaying higher salaries for Caucasian and White people, but also a higher chance for them to get a salary increase. On average, a Caucasian man earns $124000 per year, while men of colour (Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native) earn $121000 per year. Moreover, Caucasian women earn $121000 per year and women of colour, $115000 per year. This study highlights how discrimination increases with the intersection of racism and sexism, leading especially to low female participation in the cybersecurity workforce. The oppressor is not always the privileged individual, but rather the result of society’s behaviour. A conscious and unconscious marginalizing mindset is thus cultured in the workplace. Even if involuntary, power imbalances are established between the privileged and the discriminated, portraying them as societal stigmas.

Minorities in leadership roles tend to have more prestigious and higher qualifications than privileged managers. Numbers stress that 62% of minorities have masters or higher qualifications compared to 50% for Caucasian and White people. Although higher qualifications are not always synonymous of greater intelligence and skills, it is a hiring prerequisite for most employers and guarantees greater success of an organization. This highlights the extra-work minorities have to put in, in order to aspire to leadership roles, and even then does not guarantee their position. A research on 180 companies conducted by McKinsey&Company showed that diversity in management increases profitability. A firm thus succeeds more by cultivating an inspiring culture and atmosphere for employees which helps them in fine to confidently tackle challenges. Although growth and profits are key goals sought by organizations, developing unique approaches to global issues to protect personal data and information is also primordial in cybersecurity; diversity enables this. As demand exceeds supply in cybersecurity, the increasing need for professionals to work in that field in the future in worrisome. Seeing how the shrinking in the workforce gap, which may reach 1,8 million by 2022, grows bigger day by day, it is necessary to tackle the issue of underrepresentation and underutilisation of minorities in Information Security.

As a possible recommendation, executives should proactively review their internal policy, in order to determine whether or not minorities are underrepresented or discriminated within their organization. Increasing employee's job satisfaction and their sense of being valued may also in turn reduce power imbalances.

Power in Fashion

Since the twentieth century, the fashion industry has been commonly recognised as an oligarchy in which power is shared between the cities Paris, London, New York and Milan, who are referred as the “Big Four” of fashion capitals by the mass media to this day. There is no formal constitution of what is considered a ‘fashion capital’, but it is generally accepted that “the existence of ‘Fashion Week’ shows that are routinely covered by major international fashion magazines” is a suitable determinant.

Emergence of Luxury Fashion and the Fashion Capitals

Throughout history, fashion has been associated with the monarchy, as sovereign rulers had garments of the finest quality designed and created exclusively for them. This idea was reinforced by Louis XIV of France, whose financial advisor Jean-Baptise Colbert famously said that “fashion for France should be what gold mines of Peru were to Spain”, hence marking the beginning of Parisian pre-eminence in fashion. Queen Marie Antoinette, being of Austrian birth, subsequently utilized her taste for fashion to consolidate her otherwise lacking authority in the French court.

While Paris in the nineteenth century was the fashion capital for womenswear, Victorian London was simultaneously known for their menswear. Despite this, Paris remained at the centre of the European fashion stage. This is demonstrated by how London fashion designer Charles Fredrick Worth relocated to Paris to commercialise his creations in 1845. Indeed, Worth solidified the link between fashion and the monarchy by designing one-of-a-kind pieces for Empress Eugénie, but he is most known for creating the first modern fashion shows.

It was only after World War II when New York established themselves as a major fashion capital, transforming the fashion industry from a monopoly into an oligarchy. New York was already challenging the dominance of French haute couture through the innovation of sportswear and machine made ready-to-wear prior to the war. As the fashion industry declined in Paris and London due to clothing and fabric restrictions imposed during the War and had to prioritize rebuilding their economies, New York was thus able to consolidate their position in the industry.

In contrast, the fashion industry was of the highest importance in the reconstruction of the Italian economy and led to the eventual recognition of Milan as a new fashion capital in the late 1970s. Additionally, the emphasis on wearability in Italian fashion suited the tastes of US consumers who furthered their attack on French superiority by rejecting their clothing as being too ‘imperialistic’. Nevertheless, Paris retained their power in the industry with the comeback of haute couture through the creations of Christian Dior (New Look, 1947) Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel.

Challenges to Luxury Fashion and the Fashion Capitals

It is undeniable that accessibility of ready-to-wear contested the demand and power for luxury clothing in the nineteenth century. However, the contrast between low-price standardised clothing and embellished, fitted garments only increased the power of haute couture as it symbolised the ability to deploy wealth. Meanwhile, luxury fashion houses face a similar problem today with the popularity of fast fashion, which refers to low-cost clothing that imitate current trends in luxury fashion. Their accessibility allows them to determine what is deemed fashionable, which poses a much greater threat to the power of luxury fashion houses than ready-to-wear as fast fashion garments are often direct imitations of luxury pieces. With the coming of globalisation, the power of the four fashion capitals are threatened as well. There is a vast number of fashion weeks worldwide, in cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Berlin and Mumbai. It is thus very much possible for the fashion industry to develop from an oligarchy to a polyarchy, especially with the current general trend towards market liberalisation and pressure for equal representation in the media.

Power of Education

Introduction

According to the fifth edition of the Longman Active Study Dictionary published by Pearson Education Limited in 2010, power refers to “the ability to control or influence people or events”, and education is the “process of teaching and learning”. The expression “Knowledge is power”, often attributed to Francis Bacon, shows how much being educated is valued in societies. Nowadays, education represents one of the most important institution of society, and has the power of shaping the mind of the individual. However, the power of education is complex as it lies on different disciplines and has interdisciplinary benefits as well.

Background: Religion’s impact on education

As religion represented an essential part of someone’s life in the past, religious organizations started to build schools in order to spread religion to children and make them read their sacred book. Religious studies and learning the faith became a duty and being educated implied to follow a behavior and norms to respect. Jewish fathers were deeply encouraged to send their boys to school so they could learn to read the Torah; Muslims followed an education in order to understand the words of their God; Christians built schools so that children could read the Bible. Religious organizations had an authority on the people and influenced their way of living as they chose what subjects should be taught in schools. In medieval France for instance, the Catholic Church had full control on Education and therefore on the production and preservation of knowledge and made sure that knowledge was not in contradiction with the dogma. The power of the Church on education extended to the spiritual, intellectual, moral, and even artistical life. The situation is very different today but religious schools have still in many western countries a significant share of the Education market.

Sociological approach

Power of schools

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued on the importance of schools in education. According to his point of view, the role of schools is to form young people so they can adapt to social life. He sees two essential points that could explain why schools exercise a form of power: schools share values and skills required for the division of labor. Indeed, schools teach to children how to live in a society by complying them to social rules, and also to cooperate with others they are not related to, or not friends with. By doing so, schools spread a social solidarity shared among every child. In addition, Durkheim asserts that society evolved with science and technology and created new complex skills that couldn’t be taught in the family area. He argues that solidarity is about cooperating with people that have those different skills and expertise, and school is the only place where children can learn to do that, as it reunites children with different interests. The education system itself is subject to internal power plays. Indeed, as schools work as a hierarchical system, power can be determined throughout the relation between heads and teachers on one side, and students on the other. In the fifth chapter of Theories of Educational Leadership and Management’s fourth edition published in SAGE publications in 2011, Toney Bush talks about several forms of power that heads and teachers can benefit from and explain their legitimate authority, influence and leadership. Indeed, he explains that they can take advantage of their positional power as their work in the educational institution gives them the right to make decisions. This right comes with the recognition of their intellect and required knowledge for practicing, letting them to exercise an authority of expertise (Handy, 1993: 130). However, their knowledge is necessary but not sufficient: they are also required to have a personal power, meaning qualities as having charism or oral abilities that can have an influence on people (Bolman and Deal, 1991: 19). Plus, their position gives them a control of rewards as well as a coercive power: they have both the rights of attributing rewards, or sanctioning (Bolman and Deal, 1991: 196).

Education based on gender stereotypes

The sociologist and psychologist Anne Dafflon Novelle, writer of Filles-garçons: socialisation différenciée? (Girls-Boys: differentiated socialisation?), participated in a seminar called “Girls, boys: a same school?” organized by the Department of Equal Opportunities and Distance Education of the Ministry of the French Community of Belgium in 2009. By supporting her discourse on research, she explains that within the two institutions in which children grow up and build their identity and personality, family and school, there are gender-stereotyped expectations. Indeed, she asserts that society pushes parents and faculty members to encourage or discourage boys and girls towards different directions. For instance, whereas parents are most likely to foster independence and taking initiatives with their sons, they are most likely to help their daughters step by step in their life’s ascension. Moreover, Anne Dafflon Novelle showed that parents are used to give specific presents to their sons and different one for their daughters: typical boys toys are more professional, technical or scientifical oriented, whereas girls toys refer to domestic or esthetical spheres. Schools are functioning the same way as parents as teachers are most likely to give more opportunities of speech to boys or congratulating them more than girls. These two places of socialisation get boys and girls to adopt their categorized gendered behavior and have consequences on their future. Indeed, in their socialisation’s process children assimilate those attitudes and society’s norms which do not allow them, in a sense, of freely developing themselves towards their wants but urge them to conform to stereotypes. The outcomes are different directions taken by boys and girls in the professional area which will result in different wages and level of professional success. While it is generally admitted that "knowledge is power", in this case we could say that knowledge shapes various kinds of power and influence schemes depending on gender.

Education benefits regarding politics, psychology and health, and economics

Education can be viewed as power in a way that it develops the individual and shapes his future. Indeed, an educational achievement has been linked to a wealthier life, a healthier life, and an involvement in politics. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics proved that the higher the education is, the higher the wage will be. This organization made a survey in 2019 on 25-aged and over salary workers and found that the median usual weekly earning of an individual with less than a high school diploma was $592 compared to $1.883 for someone with a doctoral degree. Education improves health and the psychology of the individual as well. Indeed, the environments of schools and family develop such skills as “conscientiousness, perseverance, a sense of personal control, flexibility, the capacity for negotiation, and the ability to form relationships and establish social networks”. Moreover, as education provides jobs with higher incomes, it also leads the individual to choose a job whereby he can have access to health benefits. A family that pursued a higher education and has a high household wage is more likely to know which products to buy in order to stay in good health.

In 2003, Thomas Dee made a study research that he entitled “Are there civic returns to education?”. In his work paper, he argues that educational attainment has an impact on “the quantity and quality of civic participation” and vote, and promotes the values of democracy such as the liberty of speech. Furthermore, education is a fundamental institution that pushes people to be “politically active”, as could been seen during the Arabic Spring movement in Tunisia in which young educated adults fought for democracy, freedom, and participation in politics. However, inequalities exist within the institution of school. In First Strike: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles written in 2016, Damien Sojoyner argues that the U.S. government grants funds to schools according to the success rate of their students. This leads to the increase of inequality between schools, as some of them have access to more resources than others, and therefore do not deliver the same quality of education. In order to fight against discrimination and to provide the same opportunities for everyone whatever their race, colour, or origin, the U.S. government launched the affirmative action program since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This program requires institutions such as schools and universities to have a certain percentage of minorities in their system as a condition to receiving government aids.

Power in Philosophy - Eurocentrism in the discipline of Philosophy

Eurocentrism promotes the institutionalised idea of ‘European/ Western superiority’, with regards to history, values and intellect, and aims to establish their world-views as being dominant, having spread globally during the European Enlightenment through colonisation.

A well-known philosopher is Immanuel Kant (a philosopher during the Enlightenment period), who perpetuated the idea of power in philosophy as indirect (institutionalised) coercion, as he based his philosophical ideas on racist and Eurocentric views – his attitude to seeking knowledge of the world excluded people who were not from Europe/ the West (in addition to excluding people from lower classes in society and women). Although, European philosophy during this time period was highly influential, it was considered (through a Eurocentric viewpoint) to be of the highest standard, which also contributed to other philosophers disregarding non-European philosophies, focusing mainly on philosophy during antiquity (ancient Greece) until the Enlightenment period in Europe.

Moreover, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was also an Enlightenment period philosopher came up with a definition of the philosophical canon, which consequently denoted that pure thinking (i.e. “true” philosophy) could only exist in Europe, thus furthering the indirect (institutionalised) power of Eurocentrism, by excluding many non-Western world philosophies from the general framework of understanding, as well as suggesting that his idea is a universal standard and can be applied worldwide (by the West) to determine what is seen as “proper” philosophy.

For example, Hegel saw constitutional freedom as a prerequisite for “true” philosophy and did not consider this to have been met in Asia and thus thought Asian philosophies were not “proper”. Even though, he (and western civilisation at the time) believed that the beginning of philosophy was in ancient Greece (as a result of political freedom being achieved through democracy), non-Western scholars and epistemological thought have in many ways shaped European philosophy.

Prior to the European Enlightenment period, it was accepted that philosophy began in ancient Asia and Africa before commencing in Europe (e.g. among the Greeks, who actually studied philosophy from Egyptians in Africa). However, during and after the Enlightenment, philosophies in Africa were seen as “myths” due to their oral tradition as opposed to the tradition of written documentation of knowledge and philosophy in Europe. Similarly, Hegel did not perceive Indian philosophy as “proper”, because the ideas were closely interweaved with mythology, which according to him could not be part of “true” philosophy. Likewise, indigenous thoughts were also excluded from the discipline, due to the oral traditions of how they practiced philosophy and its strong link to their spirituality.

Another reason for the lack of representation of non-European/ non-Western thought in academic philosophy is as a result of the power of the English language being the “Lingua Franca of academia”, therefore limiting the reach of non-English speaking philosophers (e.g. some Latin American philosophers who primarily write in Spanish and Portuguese).

The institutionalised racism of defining what is considered philosophy in the academic discipline, choosing to primarily study European ideas and thinkers, and the lack of diversity among the educators in the higher education system, creates a narrow and restrictive curriculum. Although the main way of teaching what philosophy is, is through teaching the history of the discipline, this has an inevitable relationship to the dominant Eurocentric view of its origin and the Western ideology within the field. This is especially due to the fact that during the Enlightenment period, Hegel’s beliefs influenced many departments of philosophy in universities and in the 1950s, in the USA, McCarthyism majorly disrupted any production of academia, which questioned Western ideals.

The discipline has also been criticised, as non-Western scholars are often required to uphold Eurocentric frameworks of knowledge production and dissemination (created as a result of the relationship between academia and geopolitical power). These include the expectation to mention European history, concepts, values and produce work in English (often in renowned anglophone journals, which hold a certain amount of power themselves) in order to be acknowledged internationally.

Many are critical of the Eurocentrism and Western normativity within the discipline and want to decolonise philosophy, not just by diversifying the reading lists, but also by aiming for a paradigm shift in including non-Western philosophies as part of the discipline from the start. According to them, decolonising philosophy should subsequently transform and overcome institutionalised hierarchies, which hinder its potential, thereby academia should treat all philosophies on an equal level and explore the relationships between them.

Power in Politics - Power Allocation in the U.S. Government

In Politics, a distinction is made between the three main pillars of most current political systems: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary branch. On the official website of the U.S. government, those three entities are described as follows:

“Legislative—Makes laws”, “Executive—Carries out laws”, “Judicial—Evaluates laws”

It is difficult to judge which one of these responsibilities brings about more power, but analyzing how the branches influence each other’s activities can be helpful:

It is noted that the Constitution provides a separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial and that all powers can influence decisions made in other pillars, in a system called “checks and balances”.

In fact, the three pillars are far from being independent, as the interactions they have, shape the political organization of the country. For instance, the judges of the Supreme Court are elected for lifetime by the president and need to be approved by the Congress. Some may argue that electing a judge for lifetime makes them independent of the executive and legislative, which will eventually be replaced by new elected officials. But as Bruce Peabody put it: “Justices may vote their policy preferences, but the appointments and confirmation process ensures that those policy preferences are palatable to elected officials”.

Hence, representation is of paramount importance in such a connected system yet there are only little signs of that: in History there has only been 5 women, who have been elected as Supreme Court justices. Similarly, only 2 Supreme Court justices have been African American and only one Hispanic.

In particular for the Supreme Court appointments is this problematic since nominations are on lifetime and therefore bringing change becomes a long-winded process. One could argue that this is a sign of the allocation of power not changing significantly over time and permitting the same group of people to shape the political landscape.

Power in Law

The law is paramount to maintaining order in society, it is a force that can both impede or ignite positive social change. When one considers power in the law, it is clear that those in high positions of government are able to enforce laws with the intention of protecting themselves and their citizens. Nevertheless, there are times when the law can do more harm than good, as it may fail to protect the rights of all people, prioritising some over others. This is natural, as it is a socially constructed institution.

Due to the current political climate in Nigeria, the Nigerian government has began to reconsider the need for an Anti-social media bill. The rapid distribution of information which social media provides can be considered useful, however, it can also be considered dangerous if the information which circulates is proven to be false. Nigeria's minister of information, Lai Mohammed, recognises this, thus refuses to be passive in the dissemination of "fake news". This is not the first time the government has considered establishing this bill, however, the #ENDSARS protests of 2020, in which social media was utilised as a powerful medium, reinstated their fears. Under the Anti-social media bill that was first constructed in 2019, Nigerians could face a fine of up to three hundred thousand Naira, and, or, up to three years in prison, if found guilty of spreading misinformation which could "destabilise" the country. This form of censorship greatly infringes on Nigerians' freedom of expression, as it virtually divests them of the power which they have to express themselves without fear of punishment. Amnesty International commented on the Anti-social media bill when it was first being contemplated in 2019 and referred to it as "harsh", "urging the Nigerian authorities to drop these bills, which are open to vague and broad interpretations." The bill was, and still is, viewed as the Nigerian government's way of controlling and monitoring its citizens, thus, maintaining an authoritative power dynamic.The power which the law has to restrict one's actions is immense and when used without reason and, or, empathy can lead to complete deprivation of one's human rights.

The Power of Economics

The power of economics plays a role for quite some time now, simply for the reason, that a world without an economy and different economic roles within it would not work. Economic power can be defined as the state a country or a whole economy can be in, which enables it to change its policies regarding businesses and freedom in the market at any time and to improve the quality of the country, in simple terms to be independent from other countries policies and measures.

Economic Power in a free market

The power of economics can differ gradually across markets. If we talk about a simple free market economy, which exists of different market structures, such as perfect competitive markets, which have almost no power in the market, as for the principle that these are price takers and cannot adapt the prices or the quality of their goods by themselves. In contrasts, to a perfect competitive market, some markets consist only of a single firm, called Monopoly. A Monopoly has full control over its economic market, therefore, full power, which means it is the only supplier of the good or service which is supplied in the market, it is the price maker instead of price taker and has the power to raise prices without a loss of sales. Those three characteristics of a firm in a free market economy decide how much power a firm really has and by how much it can influence the market. In the case of a Monopoly it is independent from other Monopolies in other markets and has been given the power and trust, usually with help from the government, to prevent the market from collapsing. This form of economic power is usually the case for natural monopolies, such as gas and electricity networks.

Economic Power in International Relations and Politics

A discipline in which economic power is an important part is politics, therefore, influential in international relations. Economic performance is the ground battle for any political association within the system of the country. Economic theories have the power to decide in which direction the economy goes into a more supply side orientated direction or a more demand and government regulated point of view. The political system always wants to act into the direction, which the majority of people prefer, so there is a higher a chance of re-election, this shows the first point in which economics is so influential. A usual popularity among citizens of a country is the direction of supply-side policies, which lead the path of the economy towards deregulation and tax cuts, so more independency of private associations. It is assumed that most of todays political power comes from economic decisions, such as policies, which leads to the assumption that economics and their solutions and models to frame real world issues, work closely together with politics to enable a stable and powerful system.

Lastly, the illustration of economical power in international relations is very important to consider, as it was approached and contributed by Karl Marx in 1867 in his book 'Das Kaptial'. Marx who emphasised the idea of social relations and relations of power, stated that economics is politics and politics is economics. He approached the principle of different class with the same relations, i.e. working class. Karl Marx clear picture came from the elements of social-economic relations determine the power which is embedded in the state. In Marx view, any conflicts between states came from the measurement of how much power of economics is in a states politics. This states, that the power of a countries superstructure, regarding knowledge, norms and ideas, come from the base of economics.

Power in Families

The Cambridge English dictionary defines family as "a group of people who are related to each other, such as a mother, a father, and their children". The nature of the family has changed over time, especially the power constructs within it.

Traditional Power Dynamics in Families

Traditionally, families were nuclear, meaning there is a mother, father and their dependent children, and there were set gender roles in families. The man is the breadwinner, meaning that he earns the money to support the family and the woman stays at home and does domestic tasks such as housework and caring for children. Evidence of this can be found from Ann Oakley, who found that 15% of men participated significantly in household tasks and 30% in childcare, showing that they are not typically involved in this type of task. Many traditional sociologists, primarily from a functionalist point of view, called the gender inequalities in roles in the home divisions of labour.Parsons was a prominent writer on this issue; he famously named the male role as the 'instrumental role' and the female role as the 'expressive' role. He thought that the differing roles of men and women played to their natural strengths and made family life efficient, helping society to work by being a "warm bath" to soak away the stresses of daily life. He did not associate these roles with power in the home so much as he did with a stable society and functional unit. Furthermore, religious texts promote the belief that women should have a different place to men in the family. For example, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11:3 "the head of a wife is her husband", promoting that women are below men in a hierarchy of power. These family dynamics have been labelled as patriarchal by many feminist sociologists who claim that men exert power in the home and oppress women. Feminist Marxist Ansley is an example of someone who wrote about the inequalities of power in the home, claiming that 'women are the takers of shit', as they are expected to take care of men and handle their stress and emotions. Radical feminists often highlight that men express their power in the family through domestic abuse.

Changes in Power Dynamics in Families

Since World War II where women became involved in the labour market on a large scale, family power dynamics have rapidly changed.. Much of this can be inferred from the financial position of women in the family. The earning statistics show that women can be seen becoming the breadwinners in their families, meaning that they are playing the 'instrumental role' aforementioned. In 2014, it was found that there had been an 83% rise in female breadwinners since 1996/97. Almost 30% of women with dependent children are the breadwinner of their family. This shows an astronomical change in the family structure since the time that Parsons was making his judgements (1949). Sue Sharpe studied the priorities of high school girls. When she first studied them in the 1970s, she found that the girls prioritised love and marriage over their career. This changed when she studied another group in the 1990s and girls were putting their careers higher. This had an impact as it means that women are likely to be financially independent when they start a family, and they will be more likely have jobs. This gives them more financial power in the home, which men previously had.

Therborn discussed how the dynamics of the family had changed due to the (partial) elimination of patriarchy and the introduction and changes in legislation around contraception and abortion . Women have more control over sex and its outcomes, changing their position in the family which is traditionally associated with taking care of children. This implies that women are in more of a position of power in the family after huge changes in the latter 20th century, such as the National Health Service (Family Planning) Act 1967 that gave them this autonomy over fertility.

Thus, it can be concluded that women have gained more power in the family setting in the latter 20th and 21st century, and the roles that Parsons wrote about are less relevant today, making families more equal.

Criticisms to the Assumption that Power is Equal in Families in the 21st Century

There is evidence to suggest that women are still not equal in power in the home. For example, Crime Statistics for England and Wales reported in 2018 that they had observed little change in domestic violence in recent years, and women are still twice as likely to experience domestic violence than men. Therefore, there is still an observation that there is this kind of inequality in the home.

Additionally, it can be argued that men experience the works of power inequalities in the home, just as women do. There is a crisis in masculinity where men are losing their historical place in society, such as being breadwinners in the family; this erodes at male power and can have a negative impact on their sense of masculinity, adding a perspective that is often overlooked.

This is also a Western-centric view, as this data and inference are primarily based on Western societies. Not all societies have these kinds of changes in power dynamics, and it is naïve to suggest as such. For example, Bedouin societies still have traditional roles, including ones that mean women must sit separately from men and communicate differently with and around men. Ergo, power in families is not necessarily shifting in all societies.

The Power of Marketing over Gender Roles

'Milady Décolleté Gillette' Advert 1915, First "women's" razor.

Marketing is the field which specialises in entertaining a relationship between the company and customer which incites consumption. Much of it therefore involves trying to understand the public, or potential customer, in order to cater to their needs and desires, but also to influence them. These methods include for instance the use of Consumer Mindset Metrics (CMMs), which affect customer behaviour, notably the acquisition, satisfaction and retention of customers, and the company's subsequent profit.

A major component of marketing is advertising, which increases brand awareness, and drives the public to fulfil needs, and desires, or even discover new ones. In that sense, we can see how powerful it is in changing people's behaviour and thoughts, as it is a carefully calculated mode of manipulation. On one hand, advertising can be direct coercion, if it simply convinces the customer to buy a product or service from one brand rather than an other. However, advertising can also affect us in a much more profound, and longterm way. This is called indirect coercion, because it institutionalises the need and desire for a certain product, creating an illusion of choice. For example, the institutionalisation of women removing body hair has been exploited to increase profit. Women are not only directly coerced into choosing a certain brand of razors, but they have been indirectly coerced into thinking they need to buy razors in the first place. In 1915 for example, Gillette created the first razor marketed towards women, with an advert which said "A beautiful addition to Milady's toilet table -- and one that solves an embarrassing personal problem." This participated in a culture in which body hair on women is shameful, leading to a hair removal industry worth 2.2 billion USD in 2018, with no plans of decreasing. Making non-vital products like razors seem necessary to women through advertising has also led to phenomenon such as the Pink Tax, whereby products marketed to women are more expensive that the same products marketed to men. Indeed, corporations can get away with increasing the price of these types of products as they are not vital, but women ultimately don't have a choice but to purchase them if they want to fit in to society's idea of femininity, while men on the other hand still need to be convinced, in part through a decrease of cost.

Marketing and advertising have taken gender roles which were already present, either due to the biological nature of gender, or simply ancient culture, and have emphasized them to make them more profitable; so much so that gender roles are now highly defined, and imprinted onto every aspect of our society. Notably, Goffman, in Gender Advertisements (1979), explores the repeated use of certain symbols in advertisement has shaped gender roles. The widespread objectification of women's bodies for example, can be attributed to certain techniques used in advertisement. "The Feminine Touch", is what Goffman calls the repeated use of women touching objects as well as their bodies, which has created an idea that the woman's body is a prized possession, on the same terms as the advertised object was. Another method which was analyzed by feminist cultural critic Jean Kilbourne is "Body Cropping", which consists in using cropped images of a woman's body in adverts. Over time, this practice has led to an internalized belief that women are a combination of parts, which dehumanizes them. Another way which gender roles are impacted by publicity is the stark difference in representation of men vs women. While men are portrayed as dominant, active and professional; women are portrayed as passive, domestic, and subordinate. This is because creating an exaggerated version of reality creates a somewhat attainable ideal, which we are made to think can be attained through the purchase of the product which is being marketed to us. The consumerist society which we live in has therefore led to our culture, identity, and functioning to be shaped by powerful marketing strategies such as advertising.